Queen to visit Trench Town

The Queen was today venturing into a crime-ridden area of Kingston, the Jamaican capital, on the second day of her Golden Jubilee visit to the Caribbean island.

Called "Missis Queen" or "The Queen Lady" in Jamaican patois, she was visiting an urban poverty project in Trench Town, home of the notorious, gun-toting, street-corner drug gangs known as Yardies, widely suspected of involvement in cocaine smuggling to the UK.

Security is tight in Kingston, with armed troops shadowing the royal visitor who has received an enthusiastic welcome from hundreds of people lining the streets.

She was visiting the Hugh Sherlock Community Centre and the Boys Town All Age School at Wilton Gardens, a depressed area known locally as Rema.

The school and aid agency Kingston Restoration Company have received British funds through the Department for International Development.

Earlier, the Queen was addressing a special session of the Jamaican Parliament at Gordon House.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in Jamaica yesterday at the start of a three-day visit.

A 21-gun salute and red-carpet welcome greeted the Queen - sovereign of Jamaica as well as the United Kingdom - who was met at Kingston's Norman Manley International Airport by Governor General Sir Howard Cooke and Prime Minister Percival Patterson who introduced members of his Cabinet and Opposition leader Edward Seaga.

The royal visitors touched down in the Caribbean aboard a chartered British Airways 777 jet after a nine-hour flight from London.

The Queen, wearing a tangerine outfit, was resuming full official duties just 72 hours after the funeral of her sister Princess Margaret on Friday.

The visit to Kingston and Montego Bay will be followed by royal tours of New Zealand and Australia.

The bereaved, 75-year-old monarch, accompanied by Prince Philip, will be travelling abroad for 15 days until March 4.

The official visits to the three realms - Elizabeth II is also Queen of New Zealand and Australia - are the first royal overseas trips in her Golden Jubilee year, marking the Queen's 50-year reign.

The Queen and Prince Philip were determined to go ahead with the planned schedule, part of which had already been postponed once after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

The visit to Australia includes the Queen's attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which was re-scheduled from October to March in the wake of September 11.

Following the ceremonial welcome at Norman Manley Airport, the Queen and Prince Philip laid a wreath at National Heroes Park, Kingston, where they met Jamaican war veterans, including 107-year-old Eugent Clarke, a survivor of the First World War Battle of the Somme.

Later, the royal couple were guests of honour at a reception hosted by the Jamaican Governor General in King's House, where Princess Margaret and Princess Anne both spent part of their honeymoons.

At Jamaica's national war memorial, the Queen laid a poppy wreath and met some 100 veterans.

Sheltering under a umbrella from a heavy shower, the Queen and Prince Philip reviewed two lines of war veterans who stood to attention in the rain.

A small group of senior veterans were presented to the royal visitors in a marquee.

Mr Clarke, sitting in a wheelchair, proudly wore his three medals from the 1914-18 war.

At first he did not realise that the Queen - and then Prince Philip - were standing in front of him to shake his hand.

"I feel good. I feel happy," he said after the brief royal encounter.

"I am so proud because I never thought that I could see the Queen.

"I fought in the war because England was our mother country and she called for men for service, and I felt in my heart that I should go to England.

"There was no obligation, no conscription - I volunteered."

Mr Clarke, who spoke in a whisper, recalled that the Battle of the Somme was "very rough".

"The mud would drown the soldiers," he said. "It wasn't a pleasant battle."

During his time in France, the Jamaican volunteer met the Queen's grandfather, George V, who visited troops at the front.

More recently, in February 2000, he met her son, the Prince of Wales, when he visited Jamaica.

His carer Mrs Velet Miller-Lewis, a semi-retired nurse, said: "I've been looking after him - he lives in my house - for 20-odd years, out of the love in my heart."